Why Do Good People Do Bad Things Essay

Why do good people do bad things? (750 words)
In this essay I will talk about the torturing of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. I will also write about the Stanley Milgrim Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. All of these relate to one of the topics we have covered this term.
There is an excellent example of uniforms influencing power in the Stanford Prison experiment which took place in1971, it was lead by Prof Zimbardo1 (see footnote) in which a group of students were selected to act as prison guards and prisoners in a ‘fake’ prison. Even though the students who were selected to take part were completely aware it was a simulation, the experiment descended into chaos, the guards had started to torture the prisoners and even made the…show more content…

This is an example of diffusion of power, this is an example of this because the supposed ‘teacher’ keeps referring to the professor as the boss saying, ‘shall I carry on?’ ‘I don’t want to do this’ and most of the time they do what the teacher says but some of the time they don’t, for example when the ‘student’ says that he wants to get out then they normally go. Of course the student isn’t actually receiving any shocks the responses are just pre-recorded responses so the teacher thinks that he is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk
My opinions on the matter of Abu Ghraib are that it was a major flaw in judgement from Lynndie England and it was almost blinded love for her boyfriend Charlie Graner. I also think that it had to do with something from higher up in the army, for example maybe a captain that had told them to do whatever it takes and they would have taken that more literally then it was intended to be. However, I still think that this is an immoral and unethical way to treat a human being, even if they are different in skin colour and religion. With the Stanley Milgram experiment it shows that if someone sees someone else with a kind of uniform they would naturally gravitate towards them as a helping figure as they have to almost ‘earn’ their uniform and this shows that they are a good person. Also it shows that no-matter the uniform once the person

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Why do good people do bad things? (750 words)
In this essay I will talk about the torturing of prisoners in Abu Ghraib. I will also write about the Stanley Milgrim Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. All of these relate to one of the topics we have covered this term.
There is an excellent example of uniforms influencing power in the Stanford Prison experiment which took place in1971, it was lead by Prof Zimbardo1 (see footnote) in which a group of students were selected to act as prison…